Peter Fallon Books In Order

Publication Order of Peter Fallon Books

The name ‘Peter Fallon’ refers to a series of historical fiction novels written by William Martin. The Peter Fallon books are written to entertain and educate readers about certain historical matters.

+The Story

When he is first introduced in ‘Back Bay’, the first book in the Peter Fallon series, Peter Fallon is a Harvard Ph.D. student who isn’t having much luck with his dissertation. Peter only exacerbates his situation when he encounters a mystery surrounding a Paul Revere tea set.

The tea set went missing over a century ago. In trying to figure out its whereabouts, Peter Fallon is drawn into the life of the Pratt family, scrutinizing their history and the perils they encountered in their efforts to find and protect the Paul Revere treasure.

Fallon realizes too late the dangers that surround his search and it isn’t long before he attracts all the wrong sort of attention.

‘Back Bay’ is a perfect picture of the Peter Fallon series as a whole. While Peter Fallon’s personal story does progress throughout the series, each book tends to maintain the same structure.

With ‘Back Bay’, while Fallon works to try and uncover the secrets surrounding the Paul Revere tea set in the present day, William Martin –the author- takes readers all the way back to the beginnings of the tea set.

That means taking readers to a time when George Washington lived. There, readers are given the opportunity to see Washington receive the silver tea set. Martin follows the tea set through the various hands that it passed even as he chronicles the efforts of the Pratt family to gain control over the treasure.

The author endeavors to keep the present storyline running in tandem with the past. Whenever Peter Fallon discovers a significant clue at the present, Martin takes readers to the past and shows them how that clue got there.

Martin continues with this approach throughout the series. As such, readers are treated to two or more storylines running concurrently throughout any given book. William Martin doesn’t just want to keep his readers entertained.

He also intends to educate them. For that reason, his exploration of past events is highly detailed. Martin chooses to delve into characters and historical events with the intention of leaving his readers more informed than they were before they cracked his book open.

Behind each of the treasures Peter Fallon chases in the series is a rich history filled with trials, treachery, love, and sacrifice. Martin shows that sometimes, historical truth is far stranger and more exciting than historical fiction.

Martin’s decision to switch back and forth between the past and the present tends to work against him. While most readers appreciate the research that the author must do to bring history to life, some of them do not approve of the massive cast of characters Martin often introduces.

And it isn’t always the author’s fault. In unraveling the mystery of Paul Revere’s tea set in ‘Back Bay’ for instance, Martin has to follow the treasure from its origins and through the various generations of the Pratt clan.

That means introducing, exploring and discarding more characters than some readers are able to keep up with and make sense of. It has been suggested by some readers that while William Martin is pretty clunky in his approach at the start, over the run of the Peter Fallon series, he gets better at balancing his large cast while keeping readers engaged.

William Martin, it should be noted, has admitted that the Peter Fallon character is based on him. And it definitely shows. Fallon starts as a relatively mild-mannered scholarly type. As the series progresses, he quickly transforms into a combination of James Bond and Jason Bourne.

He starts out chasing artifacts and researching history, and then somehow finds his life spiraling into gunfights with mobsters and boat chases with killers. The more dangerous the terrain gets, the more effective Peter Fallon gets at doing the impossible and surviving difficult odds.

And when he isn’t playing the role of action hero, Fallon is having his way with the ladies.

It has been suggested that the Fallon series is just a wish-fulfillment effort on the part of William Martin.

+The Author

William Martin was born in 1951. He was an avid movie fan and quickly gained aspirations for a career in the movie business. And he got to achieve his dream when he moved to Hollywood at the age of 23 and began writing scripts.

Martin’s scripts were pretty easy to spot, mostly because they all had historical themes. Interestingly enough, it was in Hollywood that ‘Back Bay’, the first book in the Peter Fallon series was born.

For all his enthusiasm, no one was interested in Martin’s writing abilities, at least not in Hollywood. He failed to sell even one of his scripts. So he took one script and transformed it into a novel.

The novel was a bestseller and paved the way for the rest of the Fallon series.

+Harvard Yard

There is a Shakespeare Play hidden somewhere in Harvard University, a play that has yet to be discovered. Peter Fallon is an antiquarian and he knows more of Harvard’s secrets than anyone else.

He understands what the discovery of the Shakespearean play would mean. And he puts his mind to the task of exploring his university’s history with the intention of finding the play. Along the way, Fallon learns of the effort that has gone into uncovering the relic over the years, and the perils that many have risked in the process.

Fallon knows that joining his predecessors on the hunt could become a life and death undertaking, but his tenacity will not permit him to give up.

+City of Dreams

There are 1780 bonds in a box in New City. Those bonds are believed to hold a value of ten thousand dollars. Peter Fallon is a scholar who learns about the bonds after he receives an email with a challenge.

While the Supreme Court tries to determine whether or not the bonds still hold any value, Peter Fallon and his girlfriend Evangeline Carrington must first locate them. To aid in their efforts, Peter embarks on a journey through history.

One Response to “Peter Fallon”

1. Jim Oates: 3 years ago

   Have read EVERY Peter Fallon book but Harvard Yard as Kindle for whatever reason doesn’t list it. Not sure why, but I keep searching for a copy. My opinion, The Lincoln Letter and The Lost Constitution are by far the two best in this series.

   Reply